Elections 2017

As Kenya’s General Election approaches, the pool of candidates from which voters will choose keeps widening. This week on #MyVoterStory, Lillian Ng’ang’a, a 22-year old University student, explains why she has resigned to there being bad leaders in Kenya. She will be voting for the “lesser” evil leaders on 8th August 2017.

Ethnicity is a major factor in Kenyan politics. Tribes are seen more as singular voting blocs than as communities of people with diverse political views and interests, and politicians do not seem keen on changing this. Will Kenya outgrow this? In #MyVoterStory segment this week, we feature Philip Murgor, a Kenyan lawyer who says he will run for President in this year’s election. He equates democracy in the East African nation to Cancer.

Africa Uncensored reporter Dennis Mbae will be voting in a General Election in Kenya for the first time on 8th August 2017. He is among millions of young people who hope their vote will count in the 50+1 arithmetic. In his #MyVoterStory, he explains why the value of a single vote is inestimable.

In the March 2013 election, the average age of the female voter in Nairobi was 35, and like many other parts of Kenya, there were far more registered male voters than there were female registered voters, with 236,612 more men registered than women. The reasons why there were fewer women on the ballot in Kenya’s most urban county have yet to be discussed. Will the voter register reflect a change this time around? One woman certainly hopes so. This is Sheena Makena-Ngondi’s #MyVoterStory. She will be voting in Nairobi in the upcoming general election.

The numbers from the just concluded Mass Voter Registration exercise undertaken by Kenya’s Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission are in. They have registered 3.7 million voters against a target of 6.1 million new voters. Has apathy set in to the mindset of the voter? Today, Africa Uncensored’s John-Allan Namu shares his #MyVoterStory and why he can understand voter apathy.

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission has been conducting what it calls a mass voter registration exercise from the 19th of January and will run until Tuesday the 14th of February 2017. Millions of Kenyans are expected to register as new voters while others are likely to transfer their vote to other polling stations. Does peer pressure affect the voting pattern and do your friends have a say in who you vote for? Here’s the story of Steve Biko, a video editor at Africa Uncensored:

What determines the winner in an election is the number of voters who cast their ballot in favour of him or her. This is common at least in all major democracies and as Kenyans go to the polls on the 8th of August 2017, the winner will have to garner at least 50% of all the votes cast plus one additional vote. Apart from dropping a marked ballot paper in a box, what role does the voter play and what does your vote mean to you? In this episode of “My Voter Story”, we sample some of the views of the staff at Africa Uncensored. Here’s the story of Joy Kirigia: